1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that uses a remote maintenance service, a method of controlling the same, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-208974, a remote maintenance service performed by audio and moving image communication and remote control for a multi function peripheral is proposed. In the remote maintenance service, it is possible to solve a problem upon an error occurrence on the multi function peripheral by a call-center conveying an error solving approach directly to a user without a worker (hereinafter referred to as a serviceman) going to a site in order to perform maintenance. With this, it becomes possible to shorten the time required to resolve the error. In this kind of remote maintenance service, it is effective to realize a connection to the call-center using communication means of the multi function peripheral without the user using an apparatus other than the multi function peripheral such as a telephone device or a PC. In general, a connection from the Internet towards an information terminal that is blocked by a firewall is restricted. Meanwhile, a connection to the Internet from the information terminal side that is within the firewall is permitted if HTTP which has a high affinity with the firewall is used. Thus, with two information terminals blocked by firewalls, it is possible to realize a session establishment between the information terminals by performing connections from each of the information terminal sides to a relay server to which connection as an HTTP client is possible. By using such communication means, it becomes possible for a user to use a call-center at a wider range if an environment is such that connection to the Internet is possible.
However, there is a problem with the above described conventional technique as recited below. For example, in a remote maintenance service, there are cases in which a restart of the multi function peripheral is performed by an instruction or an operation from a call-center side depending on the maintenance contents or the trouble contents. For example, in a case where a setting modification is performed where the setting becomes enabled after the restart, or in a case when there is a device glitch, the restart of the multi function peripheral is performed. Meanwhile, in the remote maintenance service, various operations of the multi function peripheral can be performed remotely including those that are used from the viewpoint of maintenance. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of security, an operation may be performed remotely at a timing at which a user is conscious of a maintenance service, but it is desirable to avoid continuing a remote maintenance at a timing when the user is not conscious of the maintenance service. In a case where a remote maintenance service is executed using the above described conventional techniques, after the multi function peripheral is restarted, a remote maintenance service application is continuously activated, and there is a possibility that the remote maintenance service will be continued even at a timing other than that which the user intends.